Ok let me try it this way...
Reasons in the sense you are talking, are about me changing your mind. I don't want to change your mind (I don't know where you got that idea from). I accept your reasons for YOU, I don't accept your reasons for ME. This whole thread is about ME trying to see it from YOUR POINT OF VIEW.
You actually have a Christian generally interested in if there is an argument, reasons or whatever to stop being Christian and you guys are still playing the "but we don't need to give reasons", "why aren't our reasons enough"...
I have no idea of why one would need a reason to stop being Christian.
Not having faith in Christianity would seem to be all the reason needed. What am I missing?
can't you have a general discussion without the debate, that is what I'm after really I suppose (granted I realise we are in the debate forum but that was so I could express my opinions on things).
Sure. What do you want to discuss?
I am not trying to change your mind
I am not trying to convert you
Your reasons are fine for YOU
However as yet, you haven't said anything that would stop ME being Christian.
Am I supposed to try?
You are aware that not everyone agrees with Christianity. I don't feel that I must warn you of that, nor that I should decide that Christianity isn't good enough for you.
Again, what am I missing?
My mind works differently to yours, (obviously), I don't see how you expect me to accept the same "reasons" as you?
I don't. I just disagree with you about the validity of belief in God and of Christianity.
That is only an issue if something else beyond the divergence itself makes it an issue.
Is that the case? May you give me some context of what causes the issue then?
Because it certainly isn't the simple existence of atheism and Christianity.
People are allowed to have incompatible beliefs and still be at ease with each other.
Does that make more sense?
By the way you can speculate on reasons why I believe in God, if you want.
I do, but I do not have a lot of material yet. Going by the most popular reasns, maybe you have an aesthetical preference to the idea of an existence that was
meant to be; or maybe you believe that belief in God makes people focused and generally better; or perhaps you have a hard time seeing sense in an existence that lacks a promise of an afterlife.
Feel free to confirm or correct as you see fit.
Is it really that hard to have a general discussion of the reasons not to believe in God? In a positive way, not a you are wrong, you should convert way?
In this thread, talking to you, it is
extremely difficult, because you are demanding me both to do it and not to do it.
Besides, as already stated, there
is no need for any reason. Disbelief is quite self-justifiable, and that is taking as a premise that justification is needed at all.
I do find the whole "I just don't believe" concept strange, when an "idea" has been given. For someone who lived in the middle of nowhere who had never heard of God, I would accept "who?". However most people in the world have heard some form of "religion" in a sense.
And most don't believe in more than a couple, perhaps slightly more. Everyone seems to be entitled to disbelieve in literally thousands of different conceptions of god and of religions, yet you find it strange that some people reject the concept of god entirely.
What is there to find strange in that? It is just taking disbelief ever so slightly further than the average person.
If anything, that is less arbitrary than simply believing in God out of cultural habit as so many people do.
Take religion out the equation....a person makes a theory, hypothesis, claim. You look into the claim and make a decision, or sometimes (in the case of medications etc..) others do the research, statistical analysis and we all follow suit (sometimes). Whether people accept or don't is irrelevant, but there is still some sort of thought process there, some sort of decision on a claim which has been made.
That might perhaps apply to claims of existence or belief in God.
But it naturally doesn't to simple disbelief. Lack of belief does not need a reason.
I really don't get this "I just don't believe", you have given very valid reasons to why you don't believe in God.
Yep. But I only learned or thought of them because I happen to exist in a society that keeps asking me for explanations of why I am an atheist.
When push comes to shove, I do indeed "just don't believe". In a different culture I would not even know that I am an atheist, yet I would still be one.
I don't believe in ghosts that travel backwards in time either, but no one finds that odd, or even asks me whether I believe in them or why.
It's not about proving it, which is where I see the difference, you seem to put justification/evidence/proof and reasons (personal view) into one category. However in your mind, you will have underlying counterclaims/reasons/observations for dismissing the claim.
Actually, while I do think I can engage the matter rationally, I refuse to claim that one needs to do so. Atheism
needs no justification whatsoever.
As for what you want me to do, it is still not clear what it is, or even that it is not inherently self-contradictory. Maybe I am just failing to understand you.
Put it another way, how do you expect me to not believe,
I don't. Should I? Why?
to change my way of thinking, if all I get is "I don't need to give a reason, I just don't"....that wouldn't even stand in science.
Indeed it wouldn't. That is why science does not attempt to disprove the existence of God.
Or to state it from the complementary perspective, atheism does not need scientific justification.
Of course, again, it does not need
any justification at all.
I don't accept that medicine does xy and z (the claim) because I just don't, I don't need to give a reason, there is no thought behind my rejecting the hypothesis at all....
Why do you see a parallel? How does one test for the existence of God?
It seems to me that if the matter is so important to you there would be a need for you to offer some parameters of what God would be like first. Are we talking about the Abrahamic conception of God, for instance? Do you want a stance about the likelihood of existence of the conceptions of God from Deism, Pantheism and Panentheism? Or is the Christian God, or perhaps that of some specific denomination, the one you want to be justified in either belief or disbelief?
There are many other possibilities, of course. But before you demand a statement, it would be useful for you to tell us what you want it to refer to.
The way I view things there are three ways of communicating...
1) just having a general discussion, I believe x y and z...no questions, no analysing, just stating opinion
Which you claim to want, yet at the same time somehow just stating that we disbelieve in God is not enough for you.
2) having a debate...where each party attempts to change the mind of the other, expecting proof of their opinion (justification, evidence etc)
So is that what you want?
3) having a in depth discussion, I believe x y and z however questions may be asked to understand where the OTHER person is coming from, NO attempts to change the mind (unless asked to) of the other, discussing the personal reasons behind each thought, idea etc. no proof is necessary.
You are in about 2, I'm on about 3.
Actually, I am attempting, probably in vain, to follow your perspective as it jumps all over the place.
I have no idea of what you mean by 3). In all fairness, I can't say I was expected to understand it.